


All The Knots We've Tied

by DaintyDuck_99



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Amnesia, Bisexual Disaster Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Humor, M/M, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Mutual Pining, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaintyDuck_99/pseuds/DaintyDuck_99
Summary: Bev leaned into view, casting out his worry with her inevitable calm.“I have an idea.”She smiled, and for a moment, Stan saw her in 1989, offering him a sweaty bottle, mischief making her almond eyes luminous.The Losers may have defeated Pennywise, but trauma doesn't melt away so easily.Fortunately, they have one another, and not all of their memories are bad. *DISCONTINUED*
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Right Back Where We Started From

**Author's Note:**

  * For [varnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/varnes/gifts), [Mackintosh14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mackintosh14/gifts).



> This story was inspired by Mackintosh14's [Third Time's the Charm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20733752/chapters/49259441), in which Eddie is the one with amnesia, as well as varnes' [not exactly where i need to be (and yet it seems so close)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709269/chapters/49194188), in which Richie is determined to help his friends and keep them alive (plus time travel shenanigans). Please go check out their work; I can only hope I did half as well! The title of this story comes from the lyrics to Follow You Down by the Gin Blossoms.

Richie squinted at the man in the driver’s seat. Despite the stitches in his cheek, his face was pinched like old cardboard: weary, maybe a minute away from crumbling in on itself. He gripped the wheel as if the car would careen into one of the many payphones dotting the sidewalks otherwise. The pale patch of skin on his ring finger taunted Richie-a reminder of his immediate fuck-up. A stab of desire—to soothe, to devour, to truly see— engulfed Richie. He wondered what this man, already sharp in dress, language, and features, was like when he wasn’t so severe.

He wondered if he would ever remember.

A woman—the woman—leaned over the console to touch Richie’s shoulder. A halo of red curls framed her face, softening the concern that lingered in her eyes and the grimace of her worry-bitten lip. A hint of strawberry shampoo and cigarette smoke curled around Richie like a coat, carrying a sense of warmth and comfort.

“Are you okay, hon?” she asked, voice slightly raspy with fatigue.

All of them, himself included, seemed too old and too young somehow, perplexed by—yet resigned to—simply surviving the whims of the universe. Richie shrugged.

“I might be having some sort of existential crisis,” he admitted, “but I think that’s allowed because I’m basically a giant monkey with anxiety and godawful vision who doesn’t know who he is. Or who you all are. All I know is that a house fell on me and none of you are married to me. On the bright side, my superb primate intuition tells me that I know you, so I’m about eighty percent sure that you aren’t trying to ape-nap me.”

“I’m not above a little monkey murder at this point,” the scowling man in the very backseat murmured. His own dark curls did nothing to alleviate the glower; instead, they seemed to emphasize his alert gaze, swooping over his forehead with the elegance of a lawyer’s signature. His posture betrayed him though, a pair of parenthesis curved towards the person next to him, poised to catch the other man no matter which way he might topple over in his sleep.

Richie took a moment to study the sleeper-one of the B's. Ben? Bob? He was curled in on himself like a question mark, a paradoxical shield of uncertainty. The pale man probably had not slept much recently; his hair was a nest in both color and array, and his button-up shirt was pulling in different directions, as if he had only remembered to do some of them. While everyone was clearly exhausted, it had hit this man the hardest. Maybe he was bearing the brunt of their shared trauma. Maybe Richie had a degree in psychology and he normally went overboard with it. At any rate, no one was interested in disturbing the man's slumber.

“Hey, at least he’s stopped making dick jokes,” the man on the woman’s left offered. His voice was smooth, flowing and steadfast like a river. Despite the slightly antagonistic comment, his smile exuded a kindness that reached the corners of his eyes. His hands kept twisting like they were empty, swimming in and out of his threadbare, over-long pea coat. Despite the nervous tic, he appeared to be the calmest, and Richie latched onto the beacon of his aura like he had discovered a lighthouse in a storm.

"I can start again anytime you want," he replied, perhaps a bit (a lot) more flirtatiously than he had intended, twisting around to get a better look. All of these people were striking-well, the jury was out on Mr. Sandman, but Richie could let that slide, because who was an attractive sleeper? Richie reasoned that it was the universe's way of apologizing for whatever bullshit had been afflicting them. These people had been acting cagey-it was clearly more than a house falling on them all.

The seventh person in the car chuckled, prompting several of the others to groan (or snore, but that was in all likelihood unrelated).

"What? It's kind of nice that he sounded a little more like himself," the last man defended. While his modest blue sweater didn't reveal any skin, he obviously had incredibly sculpted muscles. Oddly, he flinched when he caught Richie's eyes and hurriedly looked away, mumbling something about not mentioning soccer players again. This guy could annihilate any of them with a single punch, Richie had guessed, but he lacked the rigid and glacial confidence of a professional body builder.

He was supposed to be unraveling with these people-his friends, his family-but he no longer knew how. Although their names had been thrown around in a flurry at the hospital, all he had gathered was that many of them had B names-that, and his own name. Richie sighed.

"Is it too early to ask exactly what happened?"

Bodybuilder looked like he wanted to crawl into the backseat and join the disheveled man in the realm of unconsciousness. The others' attention slid to the driver, who was gritting his teeth and pushing 50 in a 35.

Well, at least if they died now, it would make for an interesting headline. Richie wisely kept that particular observation to himself.

###  **Three Days Earlier...**

Eddie's fingers tingled as he let the fence post sail into Pennywise's open maw. He heard It scream but didn't even spare another look as he raced towards Richie's plummeting form. Eddie's stomach dropped with him. Why wasn't he waking up? Think, Eddie urged his adrenaline-addled brain, hadn't this happened once before?

A flash of red sparked behind behind his eyes. Of course-Ben had-

Eddie slammed the door on his racing thoughts before panic could force it's way in and surged forward, pouring decades of admiration and a renewed desperation past Richie's lips. He gasped into Eddie's mouth and abruptly twisted their twined forms to the right, eyes electric with manic fear. A whistle and a crack burst throughout the cavern and Eddie, effectively pinned and slightly deafened, could only crane his neck to glimpse what he had missed.

He gagged as Pennywise withdrew his mangled claw from mid-air, trying not to think about where it might have landed without interference.

"You," It snarled, "I'm surprised you thought you could cut it after all, bird-boy."

Stan stepped into view, hefting a large rock.

"I played baseball with a bunch of douchey clowns in the nineties!" he roared. "Playing against you is just a warm-up!"

To Eddie's astonishment, It quivered and appeared to literally shrink as the next rock struck its target.

Richie hauled him up into his arms and refused to let go, retreating further into the cavern without even pausing to mince words, which scared Eddie more than anything else had so far. He finally deposited Eddie in a much more secluded section, still pressed close, leaning closer, and Eddie, high on quite possibly the worst cocktail of human emotions ever, blurted out-

"I think I know to beat It."

Richie flinched, but he didn't pull away. He listened intently as Eddie explained his theory.

The Losers Club ultimately bullied the Eater of Worlds to death, but It pitched one last obstacle at them.

"We have to get out of here before the whole place comes down!"

Mike grabbed a hobbling Bev. Ben hooked his arm through her other one on the opposite side, and they took off. Bill, waterlogged, seemed mostly fine, but Stan tugged him along, anyway. Richie and Eddie scurried behind the others, and Eddie laced their fingers together both because he could and as a silent apology for not keeping his mouth shut for another few seconds.

Most of the Losers had burst through the doors of the Neibolt house when Richie wrenched his hand out of Eddie's grip. He swung around wildly as the place groaned.

"What-"

The words died on his tongue.

Richie catapulted Stan over the threshold before large chunks of debris began to rain down. Mike steadied Stan, hands quickly becoming red and wet. Eddie lurched forward, only to be stopped by the barricade of Ben's body. He strained, beating his hands against Ben's chest. Ben's lips were moving, but Eddie couldn't hear a single thing he said.

Everyone furiously sifted through the rubble minutes later. Stan kept attempting to limp over and help, but he was shouted down by Bill every time. Someone had volunteered their belt as a makeshift tourniquet, and it was fastened tightly around his thigh, along with someone else's shirt.

When they uncovered Richie, he was caked in plaster and more motionless than he had been in the Deadlights. For the second time that day, Eddie had to breathe life into his unconscious form. As he continued to perform CPR, he fervently wished that Richie would simply open his eyes and crack a dumb joke about the Bee Gees, or Eddie's mom, or even the stupid clown.

Once Richie stirred, Eddie collapsed beside him in relief, mindful not to put any weight on his chest. Someone sobbed-maybe Ben-and Bill hurried over. Richie mumbled something, and Eddie reached out to tuck a stray curl behind his ear.

"It's okay, man, don't worry about talking yet." Richie shook his head and tried again.

"I said, are you my husband?"

Eddie's mind went numb. The others watched as he walked to the edge of the property and hurled his wedding band into the grass, not unlike he had done with his placebo pills so long ago. Richie hummed.

"So...is that good or bad for me?" he inquired tentatively. Bev snorted. Stan gestured to his bloody leg.

"Do you think we could sort these issues out at the hospital, please?"

Well. Eddie was no doctor, but they confirmed his best guess: retrograde amnesia due to a lack of oxygen for Richie, and a torn artery for Stan.

On the bright side, he thought bitterly, at least he hadn't broken his arm again.


	2. Staying Alive

Stan unbuckled both seatbelts he had slung around himself like a harness when Eddie volunteered to drive and wondered how the hell Bill had slept through the entire ride. Screw bullying the clown to death or defeating It with the power of love, they should have force-fed Eddie sixteen shots of expresso, put him behind the wheel of a Range Rover, and told him to go nuts. That would be a story Stan felt much more comfortable in relaying to his wife. 

God, he had to call Patty soon. His last glimpse of her, eyes wider and face paler than the moon, flickered in his thoughts, a bright and tender flame. He didn’t know how much longer he could delay her from coming to Derry, if at all. 

Stan turned back to Bill, who would absolutely need a chiropractor after this little jaunt. He smacked his cheek lightly, to no avail. 

Bev leaned over the seat, wiping out his concern with her inevitable calm. 

“I have an idea.” 

She smiled, and for a moment, Stan saw her in 1989, offering him a sweaty bottle, mischief making her almond eyes luminous. 

“Hey Richie,” she called, and he peered back into the van, having already scrambled out like a sane amnesiac, “can you do a Tarantino impression?” 

“Shit, can I?” Richie responded with awe. 

“Fuck, wait, who?” 

Bev shrugged and gestured for Stan's phone, tapping something out and tucking it under Bill’s ear. As soon as Tarantino’s voice blared through the tinny speakers, Bill leapt out of his seat. 

“SorrysirI’llworkontheendingrightaway—” he managed to get out before he took in his surroundings, shoulders slumping. 

“I’m not sure if this is better or worse,” he muttered. Bev hummed in polite sympathy, as if she hadn’t instigated the entire thing. Stan rolled his eyes, trying and failing to suppress a smile.

He had missed the harebrained antics of the Losers Club, even if he hadn’t explicitly known what those pangs of nostalgia were for a week ago.

### Twenty Minutes Later

Bev fiddled with the cuff of her coat as the Losers surveyed Mike’s loft above the library, which was quickly emptying of any paraphernalia the government might find questionable. The coat was modest and practical, a neutral brown, course and insulated against the harsh Maine weather. She glanced at the man it belonged to.

Ben plucked an oblong mask from Richie's grasp and handed it to Mike, who gently placed it in the "return to the descendants of oppressed people we stole it from centuries ago" pile. Eddie weaved between them to press a feather duster into Richie's hands before he could fiddle with anything else, wielding a spray bottle in his opposite hand. 

Beyond them, Stan and Bill sorted Mike's mountain of books. Based on Bill's haste, many of them must have been his. Stan mouthed, _"I really liked this one,"_ holding up a battered copy with a young Bill beaming on the back. This sent Bill into a coughing fit, but he eventually uttered a small, _"Thank you."_

At their core, the Losers were all the same as they had been 27 years ago. If she rubbed her eyes hard enough, she is sure that she would see six tumultuous children. Even Richie reminded Bev of his younger self, although he acted blither without his memories. Despite what It had said about them being all grown up, despite It, Derry had found other ways to break them, and because of It's interference, suspending them in a fog, they were still broken.

She took some framed photos from Mike and tried not to think about her ring and her phone lying in the gutter, about how that would be her if Tom ever found her again. A memory shard loomed in the shadows of her fear and she latched onto it, not caring if it might cut. 

_“You know,” Ben started as they gazed out over the quarry, “one of my favorite characters once said that if you worry about something before it happens, you only end up suffering twice if that thing actually comes to pass.”_

_If anyone else had said something like that to her, Bev might have scoffed. As it was, she simply continued to smoke. Ben often spoke carefully, with or without interjections from others, as if he were crafting an essay, starting generally and using exact words to eventually wind down to his point. Garbled yells echoed below, an indicator that the others were still horsing around._

_“I guess what I mean is,” he continued, “ it’s inevitable that bad things will happen sometimes, but that’s not really permanent as long as we’re alive, so we might as well try to be happy or to fix things instead of stewing in dread all of the time.”_

_“Ben.” He finally looked at her while she stamped out her cigarette, cheeks tinged a crisp red like the apples perfect families used as centerpieces on TV._

_“Let’s just lean on one another and try to stay alive, okay? Although I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” the latter part came out in a mumble, and she knew it wasn’t very convincing._

_“It seemed like you needed to hear it.”_

_Ever discreet, he looked away again, having pointedly avoided the bouquet of purple petals blossoming on her shoulder._

She exhaled shakily and louder than she had expected, capturing Mike's attention. He placed a warm hand on her shoulder. 

"Bev. Are you okay?" 

She mustered a smile, which only became more genuine as her eyes swept over her oldest friends once more. 

"Yeah," she responded, "it's just really dusty over here." 

"I told you chuckle-fucks that we needed the feather duster! It's a staple of a consistent cleaning regimen!" Eddie chopped the air for emphasis. 

The others began to squabble. Bev quickly wiped away a trickle of tears. 

Maybe they were still broken, but that didn't mean they would stay that way.


End file.
